Larry Page set to take over as Google CEO starting Monday

When Google (GOOG) co-founder Larry Page reclaims the role of CEO on Monday, it will be business as usual at the Googleplex. No formal ceremonies are planned. There will be no speeches.

The absence of pomp underscores Page's intense focus on the job ahead -- spurring Google to innovate faster as it battles Facebook and other competitors, to react more like a nimble startup even as it zooms past 25,000 employees.

As he takes the reins, Page's aim appears to be to hone Google's sense of discipline, to keep the company's management structure as flat as possible despite its growth, and particularly to urge Googlers to continue to think big. But there are also questions about whether Page's personality, including his detachment and his past unwillingness to be the public face of Google, will well serve a company facing a host of regulatory challenges.

"To a large extent, the culture of Google is what Larry wants it to be," said Craig Silverstein, who joined Page and co-founder Sergey Brin as the startup's first employee in 1998.

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Google announced in January that Page, Google's CEO from its incorporation in 1998 until Eric Schmidt's arrival in 2001, would again become CEO this month. Since then, Page has made some subtle but interesting changes to how the company operates. He has told Googlers to change how they run meetings to make them more focused and productive, and he has directed executives to meet in public areas of the Googleplex so they will be more accessible to hearing ideas from rank-and-file Googlers, people familiar with the changes say.

'Face of the company'

Schmidt and Brin have been more in the public spotlight in the past decade than the 38-year-old son of a computer science professor from Michigan. But Page has remained a driving force within Google since 2001, insisting on reviewing every hire, people familiar with the company say, and continuing to push hyperambitious projects like the company's effort to scan every book ever published into a vast digital library.

"It's certainly true that Eric is the public face, but inside Google, the founders are still very much the face of the company," said Silverstein, who spoke just after the Jan. 20 announcement of Page's new role. Google declined to make Page available for an interview.

Paul Buchheit, the former Googler who coined the phrase, "Don't Be Evil," said Page's return sends a signal to Silicon Valley that innovation and taking risks for big ideas still matter at Google.

"This notion that something being impossible doesn't really bother you, that's really central to a lot of Google's big projects," said Buchheit, who created Gmail before leaving the company in 2006. "It's taking on things that might be possible or might be impossible, but if they are possible, it would have a really big impact on the world."

Page has a foresight that few people have, Silverstein added. Page was a driving force for the massive computing power Google needed to create, long before many at Google saw the need for products like Google Instant -- the feature the search giant introduced last year, and that Yahoo (YHOO) recently imitated, that begins to offer search results as soon as users type a letter into the query box.

"He'll have an idea that seems really crazy," Silverstein said, "and there will be all this push-back, and he'll have none of it."

Outside-the-box CEO

No one expects Page to be a standard-issue CEO. Those like Silverstein who know Page well say that while he isn't shy, neither is he an extroverted, hail fellow well met. But he has also been described as brusque with people whose ideas he doesn't value, and he has often shunned press attention. Some Google watchers say Page's famous reticence and aversion to publicity may not serve him well as CEO.

"Brilliant engineers like Page are really good at things they can measure. They have a high IQ, but often a low EQ," or emotional quotient, Ken Auletta, who spent extensive time inside the Googleplex reporting his book, "Googled: The End of the World as We Know It," said in an email.

In addition, Page faces a full and complex plate of legal and regulatory issues when he takes on his new job. Just this week, the Federal Trade Commission forced Google into a 20-year commitment to accept outside supervision on privacy, and archrival Microsoft filed an antitrust complaint against Google in Europe.

"Larry is not as talented at things he can't measure, like why governments and citizens might fear Google's dominance, or issues like privacy and copyright. Page certainly is more aware of government and other outside concerns. But they make him impatient. Which is dangerous when you're wrestling with an 800-pound government gorilla."

Doubts cloud future

Veteran tech analyst Rob Enderle, who praised the reshuffling in January, said he has become concerned since then that Page "will not step up to the full requirements of the job, which include being the human face of Google."

Yardsticks like profit and revenue suggest Google has never been more successful, and its Android smartphone software gives the company a powerful foothold in the emerging mobile Web. But Google stock is down nearly 6 percent since the Jan. 20 announcement that Page would replace Schmidt as CEO, a period in which the Nasdaq is up 3 percent.

Buchheit always believed Page's return as CEO was inevitable, and that Page's determination to swing for the fences is critical to Google's identity.

"It was just a question of when it was going to happen," Buchheit said of Page's return. "He was originally the CEO, and the only reason that changed was because the VCs required it to change. He has a lot of pretty strong opinions about how this thing should be run, and he's stayed very involved in the company."

Contact Mike Swift at 408-271-3648. Follow him at Twitter.com/swiftstories.

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